


A Conversation Between Sisters - KotOR II Dialogue fic for Handmaiden, Mira and Visas Marr

by BenW



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23311348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenW/pseuds/BenW
Summary: A Quick Dialog KotOR II fic that I wrote during the Self-Isolation phase of 2020. I've been playing through the game again and it struck me that since the Handmaiden is gender-locked in the original game to a Male Exile, we never get to see her interact with a "canon" Female Exile and wondering how that would work. And then I wondered what would happen if the same crush that Brianna develops on the Male Exile was applied to the Female Exile. Plus, I've wanted to see Mira, Brianna and Visas interact more since the only times they do in the original game is to talk about romantic advice. This fic, as you can probably tell by its length, is a far more wide-ranging conversation between the three.
Relationships: Brianna/The Jedi Exile, The Jedi Exile/Mira, The Jedi Exile/Visas Marr
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	A Conversation Between Sisters - KotOR II Dialogue fic for Handmaiden, Mira and Visas Marr

Hyperspace was cold, dark and quiet. In the time that it took a ship like the Ebon Hawk to travel between planets, there was nothing else going on around but to listen to the hum of the engines, the patchwork engines that were held together by the combined will of the mechanics on board, and wait for them to arrive at their destination. The ship was so crowded with beings and droids now that it was all but impossible to walk anywhere without running into someone else, so everyone had commandeered their own corner of the ship to sit or stand in and do their best to not even see that the others existed.

For Mira, this was about the worst place and the worst thing she had ever been forced to endure in her life. Sure, she had been orphaned in the war and basically raised herself on the Smuggler’s Moon, and yes she had been a bounty hunter for a long time that had its whole own share of bumps and bruises along the way, and there was the whole thing with Hanharr and that mess, but this was worse. At least when she had been on Nar Shaddaa, she had both of her feet on solid ground, she knew where she was standing, and she was always within a few hundred meters of a bug-out hole if things got too rough. Here, she was alone in the middle of a crowd where everyone knew everyone but no one was really friendly with each other, no one talked, and she had come aboard so late that everyone had claimed the good places to stay, so she settled herself in a supply closet just off of the main hold that was barely big enough to sit down in.

The worst part wasn’t the social awkwardness between everyone or the insufferable space, though, it was the quiet. Nar Shaddaa was so loud, so busy, the constant hum of life and noise around her had been where she thrived. She loved being in the middle of it all, feeling like she was riding atop an unshielded power coil that pulsed with energy, risking being wiped out by an errant power surge at any given moment. Here on the ship, she was alone in the quiet with her thoughts. There was no danger, there was no imminent threat to her life, there was no noise at all. It was too quiet.

And the worst part of it being so quiet was that the freaking Exiled Jedi she’d decided to hook her freighter to had walked her to a balcony rail on their way off of Nar Shaddaa and taught her to listen. It wasn’t just listening with her ears, but with her mind. Apparently, according to the Exile, the way that Mira had always found herself so at home on Nar Shaddaa wasn’t just a coping mechanism, she’d been unconsciously tapping herself into the Force. It was thanks to that tapping that she’d done so well as a bounty hunter, she’d been able to use the Force, unconsciously, to listen for her prey. Now, thanks to the Exile, that tapping had become a full on conduit. She’d learned not just to listen, but now it was more a matter of shutting herself off from the noise, it was almost overwhelming when she was in a place like Nar Shaddaa or Iziz. They just felt so much more alive now than they had before, Mira could hear their thoughts, she could hear their emotions, it was all just too much. So in that respect, being on the Ebon Hawk wasn’t so bad. The problem was that she was still listening, but the only was she was really listening to was herself.

She didn’t really like what she was hearing. When the Exile had taught her to listen back there on Nar Shaddaa, she’d been so overwhelmed with all of the sensations of thoughts and emotions flooding into her that all of her defenses and shield and that professional detachment she’d worked so hard to manufacturer as a bounty hunter had all vaporized in an instant. She was vulnerable and desperate to stop feeling what she was feeling, and had bared her soul to the Exile in a way that she’d never done with anyone else ever in her life. She’d said things about herself that even she hadn’t realized were true until that moment. It was like she’d stripped herself naked. At least none of the others had been there aside from the little T3 utility droid, and it seemed pretty good at keeping secrets. Still, all of those feelings had come to light, and as much as she’d tried to bury them again, every time Mira saw the Exile walking around the ship they all came screeching back up to the surface like a hungry mynock.

So she sat in the utility closet with the door open and tried to busy herself by fiddling with her equipment and weapons. The Exile had told her that, after some teaching and training she might be able to wield a lightsaber, but that was a step too far. Right now, Mira had some custom blasters and her wrist-mounted rocket launcher to tinker with and try to keep herself busy, she wouldn’t touch a lightsaber even if she trusted herself not to cut her own arm off with one. There were too many feelings bound up with the whole idea of Jedi and lightsabers and everything. Yes, she could feel the Force and listen to it and all of that, but there was a big difference between that and being a Jedi, that much the Exile had taught her for sure.

Damn her. Damn the Exile in all of her weirdly intense serenity. She was exactly the person that Mira should hate the most, she’d been the one to pull the trigger at Malachor V, but meeting her face to face, watching her go to the Refugee Sector and do basically everything in her power to make life better for those who lived there, standing to one side as she took on Visquis and Goto and every bounty hunter that the Exchange could throw at her and not only came out on top but also with a weird sort of grace to her, it was actually disturbing how much Mira had come to like her in such a short time. Yes, she was sarcastic, yes she had limits to her patience and was just as likely to join in the joke as anyone aboard, except for the Miraluka probably. But there was a weird softness to her that Mira had never seen anyone on Nar Shaddaa walk away with, especially after going through what she had gone through. She was strong enough that she could be gentle. In some ways, that was even more frightening than if she had been a raging psychopath that fed on blood.

Mira wasn’t alone in being drawn to her, either. That wasn’t a surprise, Mira wasn’t drawn to many people so if she was drawn in, others would be as well for sure. But the weird collection of people aboard was a motley crew even for her to see.

There was Atton the fool, the one everyone seemed to dislike or at least disregard, a pilot, pazaak player and two-cred scoundrel who wielded sarcasm like it was a weapon, but who was also the most devoted to the Exile aside from the Miraluka. No one knew why, and he certainly wasn’t going to say.

And yes, there was the Miraluka too, an ex-Sith from an almost-extinct species who the Exile had defeated in a duel without even having a lightsaber, then spared and brought to the medbay for healing. She could barely go two words without saying how her life was now only in service to the Exile, even if that meant turning on her former Sith masters.

And speaking of masters, there was the old one, Kreia, who was the exact sort of cryptic wisdom-spewer that Mira had expected from a Jedi. Mira hadn’t been around her much, but there was a weird presence to her, and a gravity to everything she said, even when she was openly mocking someone. She and the Exile sometimes disappeared into her bunkroom for hours, and each time the Exile emerged looking like she had stepped out of a religious experience.

The other one, the one everyone called the Disciple, but whose name was actually Mical, the one most openly devoted to the ideals of the Republic and morally in line with the Exile herself. He was cute, in a way, mostly because he was so openly devoted to tagging along regardless of the way the others around him treated him. He was a weird one, he had moments of surprising insight and clarity, and others of unbearable naivete. Even Atton seemed to see him as the lowest on the pecking order, which was saying a lot.

Of them all, the one that was most logical to be devoted to the Exile was the Iridonian, Bao-Dur. He had served with the Exile during the war, he had been at Malachor V, he still called her General even after a decade since the war’s conclusion. He was soft-spoken, preferring the company of machines and his little remote droid to other people, but he was also incredibly technically knowledgeable and had a punch that could knock a grown man flat, armor or not, personal shields or not. He was not a being to cross.

Of course, there were the droids, too, she could see one of them moving around the ship’s main rooms from where she was sitting. The little utility droid T3 had a lot of personality and even more secrets beneath its chassis than most of the people onboard, and it was single-appendage-ly responsible for keeping their ship running, but it was also so devoted to the Exile that she and only she was allowed to tinker with its internal systems.

Then there was the assassin droid, HK-47, and one of their more recent additions, G0-T0, the mouthpiece of the Exchange boss. Both of them were ideologically opposed to the Exile, having been programmed for violence and crime respectively, but they both respected her enough and found her useful enough that they were willing to follow her anywhere regardless. Mira didn’t trust either of them, but the Exile seemed to know how to talk with them to both acknowledge their differences of ideals, but also soothe bruised digital egos and keep them both happy enough to stick around.

And then, there was her.

“Bounty hunter, a word?”

Mira glanced up, she had barely realized how close the woman had gotten before she’d spoken. That told her how out of her element she was, no one would have gotten the drop on her if they’d been back on Nar Shaddaa. The Handmaiden was the most physically imposing member of the crew, which was saying quite a lot when people like the Iridonian and the assassin droid were aboard. She wasn’t the tallest being aboard or the broadest and her voice was rather mellow. But every micron of her was built of corded muscle, and she’d been trained in theEchani style, making her a living weapon as much as any being alive. She had pale gray eyes and every hair on her body was a stark white, meaning despite not being tall she still stood out in any crowd she was in no matter how she dressed. The other thing was, very often she chose to not dress in much. She had taken possession of the ship’s cargo hold, and in times like this when the ship was in motion, she was almost always in there, stripped to her skivvies, going through motions of different fighting techniques and martial arts that Mira barely understood. Mira didn’t really blame her, if she had a body like that she’d find times to strip down like that too, but the problem was she very often forgot to put anything back on when other people needed to come into the hold, or when she left the hold to go do something else.

Right now, at least, she was wearing her usual white robes, her hood back on her shoulders, her white hair trimmed short except for the two trailing beaded braids dangling in front of her ears. She looked serious, but then again she always did. Mira had never seen her smile, had never heard her joke, and the only time she really seemed to be enjoying herself was when she was in the middle of a fight, and even then she wasn’t enjoying things so much as just letting herself off of the leash for a bit.

“What’s up?” Mira saw no reason to be unfriendly, though it was a bit unusual for someone to be coming to her with a question who wasn’t the Exile. Most everyone else seemed to treat her like she wasn’t even there.

“Can we convene back in the cargo hold?” The Handmaiden had been raised and trained as a part of the Echani traditions, which meant she was stiffer and more formal than a protocol droid when speaking to most people. Not the Exile, of course, but then again no one could be truly formal around the Exile. “I have questions for you, but I believe it would be best if there were no one else around to overhear our conversation.”

Mira crooked an eyebrow at her, then stood up and set her blasters aside. “Okay, not sure what this is about, but sure. I’m warning you, though, I might not be able to beat you in a fair fight, but I’m not scared to fight dirty.”

This time it was the Handmaiden who cocked an eyebrow at her. “If I were asking you to fight, it would be in different circumstances, I would not want to cause the ship any undue damage while we are in hyperspace.”

“Alright, alright. I’m just saying.” Mira rolled her shoulders back regardless and straightened her jacket out. It was a custom jacket, it had extra padding and armor sewn in for protection, yet somehow that didn’t make her feel better. She’d seen the Handmaiden demolish people who were wearing full body armor and helmets with nothing more than her bare hands. And as much as she liked to talk up herself, she knew that in a close-quarters situation like the cargo hold, she’d be dead. She’d barely been able to survive being dropped into Visquis’s gladiator pit with Hanharr and a bunch of angry hounds, and she’d had explosives with her then.

She followed the Handmaiden back to the cargo hold. She did take a moment, as they walked, to appreciate that despite it being a robe that covered pretty much everything, the Handmaiden’s outfit was made to hug her quite closely, probably to allow freedom of movement. All of that training she did had apparently paid off. When they stepped into the cargo hold, surrounded by open space and storage lockers along with the Handmaiden’s meager belongings, she turned around and waited to one side of the door as Mira walked through then closed the blast door behind them.

“Huh, I didn’t think anyone could do that but the T3 unit.” Mira commented, mostly to cover the fact that her heart had just jumped in her throat. She didn’t know why the Handmaiden would want her dead, but there was no better place or time to do it.

“I have spent enough time in this space to know which settings to change when I wish to have privacy. This is simply the first time I have seen fit to use them.” The Handmaiden stood to one side of the door for a moment longer, then stepped forward closer to the center of the room. She lowered her voice as well, despite their being the only two in the room and the door being closed eliminating the need for it. “Is there a way you could sweep this space for any listening devices to ensure we are not overheard?”

Mira blinked at her. “I mean, I don’t have that kinda tech on me, Bao-Dur would be more the one to ask for that sort of thing. I can see what I can find?”

“I would appreciate it. Under no circumstances do I want this conversation to be overheard by anyone else aboard this ship.”

“Not even the Exile?”

“Not even her.”

Mira nodded with a deep breath, then said, “Give me like two minutes, I’ll give it a once-over.”

She went over the whole of the cargo hold with as fine a check as she felt comfortable giving it in the time she’d allowed. There were some suspicious places here and there that looked like smuggling compartments, but all of them were empty. The lockers were all closed but not locked, and held nothing more than the appropriate supplies of water and food and spare parts that they were meant to. The rest of the hold was dirty and beat to hell but nothing that she hadn’t seen before, and there were no listening devices or bugs to be found anywhere.

“We’re clean.” She announced as she stepped down from checking the top of the final storage locker.

The Handmaiden nodded. “Thank you.”

“Now I’m wondering what you could possibly want to talk about that would require this much secrecy.” Mira walked closer to her and put her hands on her hips. “Especially if you’re coming to me. Is there someone you want me to track down and capture for you? Because if you want them killed I’m thinking you could either do it yourself or get the assassin droid to do it.”

“No, it is not something like that, this matter is more… personal.” The Handmaiden stepped back a step and then did something that Mira had never seen her do before: she hesitated. For a full beat, she stood there, looking away, her mouth trying to form words without actually saying anything.

“Hmm.” Mira watched her for a moment, then said, “You’re gonna have to give me some clues if you want me to try and guess, I just started on this whole Force thing, I don’t know how to read minds yet.”

“I am sorry, I do not really know where to begin.” The Handmaiden seemed at a genuine loss for words. “You were the only one I could think of to talk to about this matter, and yet I had not considered the words I would be able to say.”

“Well let’s start with why I’m your only option. Why me? Out of the almost dozen people aboard this ship, why come to me with anything? I’m not the smartest or strongest or best-looking person here by anyone’s measure, and the few things I do know how to do are limited to explosives and hunting people through urban squalor, so if you’re not gonna ask me about those things then you might be barking up the wrong tree.”

“I think it would be best if I started at the beginning.” The Handmaiden said, taking a further step back until she was almost up against the wall of the hold. She still wasn’t looking at Mira directly, rather she was looking off into the distance somewhere. “When I first met the Exile and before I joined this… crew.”

“Ah.” Mira racked her brain for a moment. “Weren’t you on Telos? I think someone mentioned there’s an Academy of some kind there.”

“I was stationed on Telos, yes. I was there to attend to my mistress, Atris, one of the last remaining Jedi knights. It is her will that I be put on this ship, to watch over the Exile and ensure that she does not turn against my mistress’s interests. But things have become… complicated.”

“How so? You get a call from home or something?”

“No, so far as I know the Academy on Telos is still faring well, doing their work in secret. The complications are with me.” The Handmaiden took one more, long step back so her back was against the wall, and she tucked her arms around her so her hands disappeared around behind her. “I fear there may be something… wrong with me.”

“Wrong with you.” Mira looked at her, at the weird, unnaturally bashful body language that she was putting on. She was trying so hard to open up, but she was still too formal, too stiff to really say what she was feeling, she had to fight to even put things into words. “I know you aren’t as good at talking as you are at punching, but you’re gonna have to give me more than that.”

“Feelings are most strongly expressed through battle.” The Handmaiden said, sounding like she was quoting a tradition of some kind, but more to herself than anything. “My issue has been, since coming aboard this ship, there have been feelings expressed that I am not familiar with enough to understand how to deal with them. I am coming to you in the hope that you might be able to assist me in understanding them better.”

Mira almost laughed. Her, help someone understand their feelings? She barely understood her own, she hadn’t even known about the things rooted inside of her, the loneliness, the fear, the core to why she needed to be near people and why she had already started down the path of listening to the Force, despite everything that meant. How could she help someone else?

But then the Handmaiden looked up, and in her steel-grey eyes Mira saw more than just formality and repressed emotions. She saw an openness, a vulnerability. If she were still a bounty hunter, that was the sort of look she saw beings give her when they had the stun-cuffs on and were about ten steps shy of the decision that had put them on the bounty registry in the first place. This was hard for her, but more than that, this was her putting all of her defenses down and asking, no, pleading for help. She couldn’t mock that. The Exile hadn’t mocked it when they had been standing at that balcony back on Nar Shaddaa. If it were the Exile standing here in front of the Handmaiden, she wouldn’t hesitate to help.

“Okay, then.” Mira said, “I can try. Not sure why you’re asking me to do this and not someone else, I’m sure the Exile would be willing-”

“No, it cannot be her.” The Handmaiden snapped, “She cannot know about this.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Mira put her hands up, “Not the Exile. And I imagine that you didn’t want to talk to Kreia because you didn’t want to get chewed out.”

“The old woman does not appreciate my presence here.” She replied with bitter notes in her voice, “She believes that I will betray the Exile and lead her into ruin, which could not be further from the truth.”

“I’m not going to ask why you didn’t ask Atton, but surely Bao-Dur or the Disciple…?”

“Neither of them could assist me in this matter, and I will not ask the Sith apprentice for anything, lest she betray it to the Exile as well.” The Handmaiden shook her head. “You were the only option that I had. I have thought this matter over extensively.”

“I can see that. But you still weren’t sure what to say when we actually got here.”

“No, because I am not sure how to put it into words, what I am feeling. The expression of battle only means so much when it is not put in front of you, and without her being here…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head again.

“Wait, without her being here?” Mira’s mind scrambled for a moment before finding purchase. “You’re talking about the Exile?”

The Handmaiden nodded. “She and I have been training together, I have been teaching her the Echani styles of martial arts.”

“I was wondering why the two of you seemed to be a lot sweatier than usual sometimes when walking around here.” Mira said it as a joke, mostly to stall for time as she tried to think through everything she was hearing. “So, in the course of your training with her, there were some feelings expressed that you’re confused about?”

“Yes, precisely.”

“What kind of feelings?”

“That is the problem, I do not know what they are and I am struggling to know how to describe them. I thought that perhaps you might best be the one to understand, you and the Exile spent time on the Smuggler’s Moon where she taught you some things about the Force. I think that perhaps, if you could use the Force on my mind, you might be able to help me understand.”

“Aren’t the Echani trained to resist things like that?” Mira asked, confused, “I thought-”

“We are, but this is a case where I cannot think of another solution. I can try to open my mind to you as much as possible, but that is the most important reason why we had to be alone for this. I cannot allow anyone else to have this sort of access to my mind.”

“Not even the Exile?”

“Not even her.”

Mira took a breath, then another. She had no idea what she was doing. If she opened herself up to try and listen, then she was going to hear everyone aboard the ship, it would be a mess. She needed to somehow listen to just the Handmaiden, someone she barely knew, and try to comprehend thoughts or emotions that the woman herself couldn’t even begin to describe. It was a huge challenge, almost to the point where she wasn’t sure that she could do it. But challenges were the sort of thing that she’d spent her whole life rising to meet, even when everyone else in the whole galaxy either doubted her or actively moved against her. Compared to things like having to wrangle Hanharr, this was nothing.

“I’ll try. Like I said, I’m not good at this, but I’ll do my best. No promises.”

“That is all I can ask for.” The Handmaiden leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “You may begin.”

Mira took a long breath, and she closed her eyes for just a moment. In that moment, she opened her own mind, she opened it and listened. At once she was overwhelmed with voices, noises, the sounds of the whole ship and everyone on it. It wasn’t as bad as when she had first opened herseful up on Nar Shaddaa, but it was still pretty bad. There not being as many people around actually made it worse because she could hear the ones who were there way more clearly. Atton was counting pazaak cards in his head, almost like he was playing a game with himself as he tended the ship. Kreia was going through some sort of Jedi meditative chant, and so was the Exile, they were probably going through an exercise of some kind. She could hear the Miraluka whispering something -- maybe a poem? -- about walking through ashes. The Disciple was reading, he was pondering a passage in some ancient text or other. She could even hear the droids, not their thoughts but their motions, the whirring and clanking and the ticking noises of their electronic bits. Bao-dur’s thoughts, at least, were mercifully quiet as he went about his work.

But louder than them all was the Handmaiden. Maybe it was because she was so close to her, maybe it was because she had her defenses down, or maybe it was just because she was thinking or feeling so loudly compared to everyone else, but once Mira focused on her it was all she could hear. And no wonder she was confused and uncertain of herself, the Handmaiden’s head was a riot. All sorts of thoughts and ideas and feelings swirled around and spoke with overlapping voices and it was almost too much, it was almost overwhelming. But there was a single focus that she could latch onto, a single thread that she was powerful enough that she could listen for it, pick it out of the riot of noise and not get lost in everything else inside of her head.

The Handmaiden was thinking about the Exile. Her voice was softly speaking to herself about the Exile’s virtues, almost like she was saying a prayer to a goddess. She thought about all of the kindness that she expressed, about her understanding tone, about her compassionate eyes, about seeing the strength in her when she fought, about watching her undress to be ready to spar according to the Echani traditions and dress again after they were done…

“Whoa, okay, I think I get it.” Mira shook her head and shut it all down again, closing herself off, silencing all of the voices inside of her head. There was a bit of a rush from it, her head spun like she’d been hanging upside down and had only just turned rightside up again. “Okay, you can close it back down. Whew, that’s exhausting, no wonder the Jedi are so uptight about their training for that stuff.”

The Handmaiden took a breath and opened her eyes. “Do you understand? Can you help me?”

“I think so, yeah. Well, I think I understand, but helping you is a whole other story.” Mira took a deep breath. How to approach this? The fact that she didn’t understand what she was feeling had a whole layer of implications about the Handmaiden herself that she wasn’t about to try and unpack. But, sometimes the brutal truth was what people needed to hear. Besides, she hadn’t asked to soften the blow at all, so she wasn’t about to do what she hadn’t asked for. “You’re in love with the Exile.”

The Handmaiden started to say “That’s not-” then cut herself off. Her pale skin flushed bright pink. “Is that what this feeling is?”

“Well I’m not sure how it could be anything else. I didn’t go too deep, but I could hear how much you’re thinking about her and a bit of what you’re thinking about her.” Mira put her hands back on her hips, but not in a taunting way. “You admire her, you think she’s special, you like how nice she is and how strong she is at the same time, and you also think she looks good with her clothes off. Am I missing anything?”

The Handmaiden looked down again, and her skin flushed an even deeper shade of pink, almost to red. Mira realized afresh how hard this had to be, if she didn’t even realize what the crush was let alone how to deal with it. For someone who had been trained to be incredibly formal with everything she said and did outside of battle, talking about it had to be incredibly difficult, let alone actually letting Mira into her head.

“Her eyes.” She said in a very quiet voice.

“Hmm?” Mira barely heard her, “What was that?”

“Her eyes. She has eyes that are kind when she is at peace, and sad when she is in battle. I thought that someone with the past she has would be hardened to the world around her, callous and unfeeling. But she is neither of those things.”

“She walks like she has the weight of the galaxy around her neck, but she still talks to the refugees on Nar Shaddaa like they’re still people with value and gives them a purpose again.” Mira nodded. “I get it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I guess. In some ways. I don’t usually swing that way, but there’s something special about her, y’know? Something magnetic.” Mira looked at the Handmaiden for a moment, looking at the conflict swirling around in her eyes. “You have no idea what to do with what I’ve just told you, do you?”

“I have not… had this situation arise in the past. My contact with people outside of the Academy has been limited.”

“And let me guess, they neglected to cover this in any of your training.”

“I fail to see how any sort of training would be adequate to prepare for this sort of situation and its complexities.”

“I’m just saying it so you don’t have to think about it.” Mira paused, looking at her, then moved her arms up and folded them over her chest. “So, what now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now that you know this, that you’ve got a crush on the woman who it’s apparently your job to keep an eye on, so what are you going to do about it? Because if there’s anything I know about this sort of thing it’s that not doing anything about it is probably your worst option.”

“Why so? If I do nothing about it, is that not better than acting on it, in this case? I cannot put myself into the situation where I have to choose between the Exile and my mistress. My mandate is too strong a bond to break so easily over so small a thing.”

“But it isn’t a small thing, is it? It’s big enough that you came to me about it. It’s clearly eating at you somehow. So what are you going to do?”

“What can I do?” The Handmaiden made it sound angry, but it was clearly a plea for help. “There is a very clear distinction between what I must do and what I apparently wish, I see only one path forward.”

“Well, that’s certainly one way to look at it, but here’s the thing. If you don’t change anything, you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, training and all that, and this isn’t going to go away, it’s going to get worse. Every time you look at her, those feelings are going to come bubbling back up, and it doesn’t matter how well you were trained to suppress those things, sooner or later you’re going to snap. I’ve seen it happen before, it’s never pretty, and usually involves someone getting a bounty put on their head.”

The Handmaiden looked stricken. “Are you saying that I might… kill the Exile?”

“Maybe, or you might just stick your tongue in her mouth instead, who knows? I was only in your head for a bit, and I didn’t get much more than what I said so I really can’t say.”

The Handmaiden was bright red now, and she looked back down at the floor. “Atton has already accused me of using our training time for other pursuits.” She said, “At the time I thought he was being his typical self and told him he was a fool, but now I see he may have been right.”

“Let me ask you this.” Mira lowered her hands to her hips again. “If this were any other situation, if your job wasn’t to watch the Exile and there wasn’t anything like that hanging over your head, she was just a super awesome lady you had a crush on and who you’re teaching fighting skills to. Would you do it? Would you hook up with her?”

“Would you?” The Handmaiden turned it on her, but that didn’t surprise Mira much, mostly because she was so embarrassed and flushed that she looked like she was about to burst a blood vessel. She wanted to be out of that line of thought as quickly as possible. “If you had the opportunity, would you pursue the Exile?”

“I’m sure I’d have to get in line, but yeah. Hell yeah, I would.” Mira was a bit surprised at her own answer, but it felt right to say, so she kept going. “She’s awesome for every reason you’ve said and a few others besides that. Like I said, I usually don’t swing that way, but not everything has to be about the physical stuff, you know? Just a kiss or two, maybe some cuddling and late night walks through some weird, alien city. If she was ever like, hey, I know I’m a hero of the Mandalorian War and I have about five hundred million things pulling at my attention right now, but this schutta from Nar Shaddaa is worth my time, I’d be there in a microsecond.”

The Handmaiden said nothing. She was still conflicted, still looking down at the floor, still not really embracing her own feelings. In a way, Mira felt bad for her. She was so used to stamping on her feelings with spike-heeled boots that having some overwhelm her like this was, well, overwhelming. She’d been locked up in some stuffy Academy place with no one for company but her sisters and some old Jedi who probably saw any sort of romance or sex as things that had to be killed with fire. No wonder her first real crush had come on so strong that it was basically shutting her whole brain down.

“Look, I’m no expert, but you’ve gotta make a decision. Either you cut this off, stop the training, do some other things to try and move past this if that’s the way you want to go, or you move in and go for it.” Mira shrugged. “Men are easy with this sort of thing, usually you just rough ‘em up a bit, put stun-cuffs on ‘em and then leave ‘em alone without rations for a bit until they’re open to suggestion. With women, you’ve gotta be a bit more subtle, but only so much that you usually ask before you put the cuffs on.”

“Not everything can be a bounty hunt.” The Handmaiden’s voice was almost a whisper now. “There are too many factors pulling from different directions for things to be that simple.”

“Then let’s go over it as if it is complicated. You’re not going to get away from this as long as you’re on this ship, there’s too much going on and we’re too cramped together in here for it to not come up again, even if you do stop training and doing other things. She’s still going to be here and she’s probably going to ask you to go on missions out on whatever planet we’re going to next. These feelings you’re so afraid of talking about are going to be with you as long as you’re in this crew. So you have two choices: either tell the Exile about them, or leave.”

The Handmaiden drew in a sharp breath and looked up, her eyes suddenly thick with fire. “Either way I betray my mandate, those are unacceptable options.”

“Honey, you stopped following your mandate the moment you started sparring with her, because this was bound to happen from that point on.” Mira folded her arms again. “I think we’re way past you having to worry about betraying anyone except yourself at this point.”

“I-” Once again, she started to say something in angry response and caught herself, quieting down. “I cannot betray my mistress,” She said in a much weaker voice, “It goes against everything I have been taught.”

“Then maybe you were taught wrong.” Mira shrugged again, “Look, I’m just saying, the Jedi and the Echani have weird ways of looking at love and romance and all that, and no good ever comes of squashing those things down, it just makes people cranky and horny on top of everything else. And you’ve been taught by both of them. Maybe it’s time you started thinking about yourself a bit, now that you know what life’s like outside of those stuffy Academy walls.”

The Handmaiden again said nothing, but this time her silence wasn’t an embarrassed one, it was a contemplative one; she stared down at the floor again, the flush leaving her face but staying on her cheeks, giving them just a bit of a radiant glow. Mira couldn’t think of much else to say. She felt like she’d done what she could, she’d answered the Handmaiden’s questions and done her best to help, just like she’d said. After that, whatever else happened was going to be up to her.

“Is it alright if I go?” She asked, “I think that whole Force thing gave me a bit of a headache and I’d prefer to wait out the rest of our trip in my little closet up front if that’s the case.”

“Of course, you are free to go.” The Handmaiden said without looking up. “Thank you for your assistance, you have done more than I asked.”

“Hey, no problem. Still not sure why you asked me for help, but if you’re thanking me then I must have done something right.” Mira moved to the door, and realized that it was still closed and locked. She had half-turned to look back for help in unlocking it when there was a sound from the other side of it, a soft tapping sound like someone’s fingers on the metal surface. She froze, as did the Handmaiden. “Who’s there?” She asked out loud.

“Please let me enter, I would like to speak to you both.”

Mira was staggered. The voice was so soft that she almost couldn’t hear it through the bulkhead, but at the same time it was unmistakable. The Miraluka ex-Sith apprentice was right outside of the cargo bay door. She looked over her shoulder at the Handmaiden, and was not surprised to see that she had snapped into her more typical demeanor and even a bit of a loose combat stance. Neither of them had weapons close to hand, at least not that could counter a vibrosword at close range, but with the Handmaiden back to her usual form Mira wasn’t too worried about that. So long as she managed to get out of the way first.

“Okay, one sec.” She nodded to the Handmaiden and she both moved closer to the door while Mira took a step back from it. When Mira stepped to the side, the Handmaiden worked with the control for a moment, and the blast door slid open. Mira took another long step back and raised her right arm with her wrist-mounted ordnance launcher primed, a tranquilizer dart loaded and ready to go. “Come on in,” She invited.

The Miraluka walked in with all of the grace of a felinx, her steps almost silent on the deck beneath her. She was dressed in her usual outfit, black and burgundy robes with a sash around her waist, gloves on her hands and a hooded veil over her head. It was difficult to tell what her expression was with all of her face hidden except her mouth, but she did not seem to be in a threatening posture. Still, the first time she’d come aboard the Ebon Hawk she had incapacitated the entire crew, including the Handmaiden herself, in an effort to fight the Exile alone. She’d still lost, but it was still impressive. Similarly to the Handmaiden, despite her robe being modest in the sense that she showed no skin whatsoever aside from the lower part of her face, it still clung to her in many places that most robes did not, showing that while she looked and acted demure, she was fit and athletically built. It also meant that hiding weapons on her person had to be extremely difficult.

“I am unarmed.” She said as she entered, “I wish only to talk.”

“Then talk, and once you have talked you can get out.” The Handmaiden barked. She hadn’t forgotten being beaten by the Sith lackey before, and that grudge ran deep. But now, Mira wondered if there wasn’t something else behind her anger. After all, the Sith seer was openly devoted to the Exile in a way that pretty much no one else came close to matching, and the Exile had spent some time talking with her, and even given her the other main bunkroom to live in while aboard. Was there a bit of jealousy mixed in with suspicion? Or was she just overthinking it?

“You are right to be suspicious of me, but I mean neither of you harm in this. I felt a disturbance in the Force, a wave of thoughts and emotions that I could not ignore.” She walked to the center of the cargo hold, then turned and faced them both. Miralukas were blind in the traditional sense, in that they had no eyeballs or other things to see with the way that humans saw, but they could apparently see things using the Force, which was something that Mira had never really understood as possible until now. She could hear through the Force, and this woman could see, it sorta made sense.

“It occurs to me that we have not been properly introduced.” She said, “I am sure that you know of me, but you do not know who I am.”

“I know you’re the one who knocked out the whole crew and tried to kill the Exile.” Mira said, “Which, even if I wasn’t here yet, isn’t something to fill me with confidence about you.”

“My name is Visas Marr.” The woman said, “And you mistake my intention. I did attack the Exile, yes, but I did not intend to kill her. I knew that I could not. I knew before I arrived aboard this ship that the Exile was stronger than I, and our battle only served as proof of such.”

“So why attack her, then?” The Handmaiden challenged, “If you knew you would lose, why attack her at all, why attack the rest of us?”

“Of all beings aboard this vessel, I would hope that you would understand, Echani warrior.” Visas did not raise her voice, she barely even seemed to be put out at what the Handmaiden was saying. “The Echani tradition is that feelings and thoughts are best expressed through battle. I sought to test the convictions of the Exile, putting her in a position where it was her and I alone, our wills battling together, and she had every reason and opportunity to kill me. There were no witnesses, and there was no cause for her to spare me. I knelt at her feet, my lightsaber broken, and begged her to kill me. And she did not.”

“Do you know why?” Mira asked her, “Or are you here because you’re still figuring that out?”

“I know why I was spared.” Once again, Visas did not sound angry that she was being challenged. She was even more temperate with her emotions than the Handmaiden was. “It is because the Exile’s heart is one of compassion. Every life she takes, she bleeds inside, she aches for each loss. She would not kill me, because she would be killing herself in the act. She showed me mercy though I deserved none, and thus, my life is now hers.”

“You did not come in here to say these things.” The Handmaiden was not entertaining any of their talk, apparently. “Say what you came to say, and then leave us.”

“I know that you love the Exile.” Visas said this, and the Handmaiden and Mira both immediately took an instinctual step forward, ready to attack. Both of them held themselves back, though, if only to hear her out. “While I have been aboard this ship, I have noticed that many of you have been closed off from the Force’s currents even if I were to try and read them. Your Echani training has made a wall around your mind, in particular, hiding your feelings and thoughts from me. Until just moments ago. There was a flood within the Force from you, such that there was no way that I could shut it out. Sensations, emotions, feelings and thoughts all burst forth like water from a dam. Then, a moment later, it was gone, and the stillness of your mind returned. Why you lowered your defenses for that moment, I do not know, but the message of it was as clear to me as if you had screamed it aloud standing next to me. You love the Exile, and it is hurting you inside to realize it.”

Mira saw the Handmaiden hesitate, her eyes flickering away from Visas and back toward the door. Mira got her attention with a quick gesture, then nodded toward the doorway, and the Handmaiden nodded in response. As she went over to it, and went through the same quick actions to close it again, Mira spoke to Visas, her wrist still raised and the dart launcher still ready to fire.

“So if you heard it from out there, does that mean that everyone else aboard the ship heard it as well?”

“Perhaps not everyone.” Visas pondered, “The Disciple and the Irinodian are both latently sensitive to the Force, but they have not been trained and both were occupied with their work. The pilot was likewise occupied, and his mind is always busy with the noise of whatever he can call to it. As for the Exile and her teacher, however, I have no doubt that they both felt the same sensation of projected emotion that I did.”

“So she knows.” The Handmaiden did not come back from closing the door. Instead, she leaned back against it, just as she had leaned against the wall before. “She knows now what I feel.”

“If that is what you fear, I would advise that you take heart. I am not as close to the Exile as some of those aboard are, but I feel that I know her mind in some small way thanks to our connection in the Force.” Visas did not move a step, but she turned and seemed to almost shift her body closer to the Handmaiden, as if she wanted to get closer to her but knew that moving while weapons were trained on her was a bad idea. “I believe that the Exile already knew. She knows that many of the people aboard this ship have affection for her to differing degrees. Her teacher appreciates her, the Iridonian is devoted to her, the Disciple idolizes her, even the pilot, sour though he may seem, hides a very deep fondness for her, perhaps more than even he realizes. I believe, however, that the three of us in this room are different. All of us are in love with the Exile, and for very similar reasons: We are all, the three of us, drawn to her ideals, to her compassion and her willingness to learn about us, who we are, where we came from. I imagine that she has asked the two of you similar questions to what she has asked me, about my home, my people, where I have learned the things I have learned, what experiences and hardships have I faced in my journey to this place. I have trusted to her things that I have not told another living creature, stories about myself and my history, my feelings, my fears and my longings. And when your mind opened to me, Echani warrior, I knew that you had experienced the same thing. Your mind, bounty hunter, though awash with noise, also glimmers with the imprints of where the Exile’s compassion has passed through, leaving hope and love where there was only loneliness and darkness before. We are the same, the three of us.”

Mira lowered her hand. She couldn’t fault the woman’s reading of her, or doubt that her trained access to the Force probably left her an open book compared to the others on board. “Well, the fact that she’s got a butt that looks great in that old Jal Shey armor doesn’t hurt, but you’re pretty spot on with the rest of it, too.”

“What do we do?” The Handmaiden asked, not just to Mira but to Visas as well. “We cannot all love the same woman. The Exile is already pulled in every direction by her mission to find the remaining Jedi and stop the Sith who have hunted her through our travels. If this matter is dragged out further than it is-”

“If she already knows, then that changes everything, all of our options.” Mira said. She didn’t mean to be rude by cutting the Handmaiden off, but the situation had changed. “If Visas is right, then the Exile’s already well aware that we’re both crushing on her, that all three of us are, and she hasn’t done anything about it. Hell, for all we know she might not care, she might not swing that way either. And if she’s not going to do anything about it, then we have to do something, because I don’t know about you two, but I don’t like the idea of just sitting here being burned alive by my own feelings. I’m not that kind of girl. I’m the kind to take charge and take action.”

“Then I will repeat my question: what do we do?” The Handmaiden again sounded less angry and more like she was pleading for someone to give her an answer that she could accept. “What kind of action could we take that would give us closure while still leaving both the crew and the Exile in the places they need to be? There are events in motion around us that carry far more weight than our feelings, yet to me this feels like the most important thing that is happening. I know that is wrong, but I am not sure how to stop feeling what I am feeling.”

“I am far from an expert in such matters,” Visas said, “However, I feel that the desperation of your reaction may be excessive. The Exile will not toy with our feelings, that would not fall into line with the woman who spared my life. She would not manipulate us that way. If she does know our feelings, and I believe that she does, she may simply be waiting to see if any of us will admit to them. She may be waiting for one of us to know our own mind and our own feelings in such a way that we are the ones to address it to her.”

“If that is true, then it brings us back to a dilemma that I posed previously. All three of us cannot love the same woman.”

“Why not?” Mira looked at the Handmaiden and shrugged. “I’ve seen weirder groups form relationships before, four women getting together doesn’t seem so bad.”

“In the situation we are in and with the mission we are on, I disagree.” Visas countered, “The task set before the Exile is too important to create a tangled web of relationships around her that may cause strain at any crucial moments that may come. Irregardless of that, I do not believe that I am worthy to be the Exile’s consort. I am content to love her from afar, because I know what is coming.”

“And what is coming?” Mira asked her, “What is this great task that the Exile’s set on, because as far as I know she’s just trying to get the Jedi back together and stop the Sith from killing everyone.”

“You make it sound far simpler than it is, because you have no idea the magnitude of the threat before us. The Sith that the Exile faces, that we face, are no mere army or fleet of warships. They are the shadows, the whispering hunger of the empty space between the stars. They are the collected pain and agony of every being that perished in both the Mandalorian War and Revan’s war that came after it.” Visas turned her face first to the Handmaiden and then to Mira, as if she were looking to meet their eyes even though she didn’t have any of her own. “There is no victory possible against the Sith, there will not be a moment where the heroes of the story walk off into the distance with the sun warm on their faces, the ashes of their enemies behind them. Even if the Sith are destroyed, I foresee that there will be a terrible cost. And I believe that the Exile sees that as well.”

“Is that why she has not addressed it to any of us, even if she does know the feelings we have for her?” The Handmaiden asked, though she sounded more like she was thinking out loud than anything. “Could she be trying to spare us, or spare herself, the feelings of loss that would come from such a fate?”

“That is what I believe.” Visas affirmed, “I also believe that is what her teacher has cautioned her to do.”

“Yeah, that old hawkbat probably warned her from getting too attached to anyone else, she seems like the type. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I had a chance with her either, I only talked about it because our talk brought it up.” Mira pondered for a moment. She still didn’t really get all of what Visas was saying, she was incredibly dramatic and probably overblowing it. But at the same time, the Force opened up a whole new universe of possibilities inside of her brain now. Two months ago, Mira had been the best bounty hunter on Nar Shaddaa, but nothing more than that. Now? Now she was a member of a crew surrounding a Jedi Exile on a mission to save the galaxy, and slowly but surely she was beginning to learn about the Force herself.

That was the big one. The Force made the whole galaxy seem so much bigger than it had been before, and it was already a huge place. Before, she would have scoffed at someone like Visas saying they could see danger in the future, but now, she was more inclined to believe it. And that chilled her. “So is that what we’re stuck doing? Just kinda watching the Exile from where we are, a sorta look but don’t touch arrangement?”

“I- I hope that is not the case.” The Handmaiden blurted out before she could stop herself. She immediately looked bashful, flushed bright red again and turned away from meeting Mira’s eyes.

“Holy stars, but you’re thirsty.” Mira said with a bit of a smirk. “See what I meant when I was talking about you snapping before? It’s only going to get worse.”

“I do not understand.” Visas spoke up, “The impulse is so strong in you, it seems to be pushing aside all sense and reason from your mind. I would ask why, but I am not confident that you would answer me.”

“It’s the first time that she’s had a crush on a woman. Maybe the first time she’s had a crush on anyone, I dunno.” Mira explained, because from the Handmaiden’s expression she wasn’t going to say anything. “Being raised in an Academy on Telos’ polar ice cap didn’t lend itself to many dates, and this sort of thing wasn’t exactly in the curriculum.”

“If I had wanted her to know those things, I am quite capable of speaking for myself, bounty hunter.” The Handmaiden snapped at her. “I told you those things in confidence, and you have immediately betrayed my trust.”

“Oh save it, it’s not like she couldn’t have figured it out even if she couldn’t read your mind.” Mira shook her head and looked at Visas, even though the Miraluka couldn’t see the tired expression on her face. “It’s like she’s never been outside of the house before.”

“I apologize if my level of experience in these matters does not meet your expectation, but as I recall I asked you for your help, not your mockery.” The Handmaiden frowned at her, and she moved like she was going to open the door again. “If all you are going to do is exploit the vulnerabilities that I had opened for you in order to make fun, then you can leave and take the Miraluka with you.”

“Wait, hold on, slow down and back up.” Mira put her hands up again. “I’m not making fun just because I want to make fun of you, and I’m certainly not exploiting a weakness. If I wanted to, I could, I’m a bounty hunter, that’s what I do. But that’s not what I’m doing. I’m teasing you.”

“I fail to see the difference.”

“It is a matter of intent.” Visas spoke up again, “I believe that Mira is teasing because she is trying to put herself and you at ease when the air between you remains quite cold despite the sharing of feelings and information. I do not sense any malice in her intention or her words. If she were mocking you, she would be harsh, intending to wound, not merely to make you bristle.”

“Yeah, what she said.” Mira didn’t think that she could explain it quite the same way, it sure made it sound better than anything she could have said herself. “Look, if it helps, think of me like an older sister or something, I’m not trying to actually hurt you, I’m just trying to help make it less serious.”

“I have sisters, back in the Academy on Telos.” The fact that her voice and face got darker and not brighter as she said this told Mira that maybe it wasn’t the best comparison to draw. “To them, I was always the last Handmaiden, the least, the one not worthy of being a part of the team. When my five sisters sparred with the Exile, they left me to the side, and they told her that I would only get in their way, that they would fight better as a united team without me. Their disdain for me was deep and evident in every sparring session I had with any of them, they saw me as someone lesser and unworthy of being a part of them.”

“Then it sounds like your sisters sucked.” Mira cut into her thoughts, because she knew that particular kath hound trail was going to be long if she built up much more momentum. “Let’s just say that now. That’s not what sisters are supposed to do. Now, I’ve never had sisters, and my parents died when I was just a kid, so I could just be talking out of my backside here. But to me, a sister’s supposed to be there to help you get through life without screwing up too bad and be a shoulder to lean on if you need it.” She folded her arms over her chest again, meeting the Handmaiden’s grey eyes with as tight a focus as she could manage. “Now, I don’t know how old you are, so I have no idea if I’m the older sister or the younger one, but I’m certainly a lot more experienced than you in terms of how much life outside of the same four walls I’ve seen, so let’s just assume that I’m the older one for right now. And I’m telling you that there’s only a handful of beings in this whole galaxy that I’d say I’m more scared of than you if we were to actually fight, so saying that you’re somehow going to make a team worse if you were to fight with them instead of better is ronto crap. If that’s what your so-called sisters told you, then they weren’t worthy of being your sisters, they just sound like petty, insecure schuttas to me.”

The Handmaiden sounded resigned and a bit sulky now. “They are… half-sisters, my only living relatives. We shared the same father but different mothers. They are the only family that I have.”

“Family’s more than blood, honey.” Mira took a deep breath and went for it. She’d already done it with the Exile, and if the Handmaiden was going to open up, it was only fair that she did so as well. It was what the Exile would do. “Look at me, my family and I were slaves taken in by the Mandalorians in the last big war. They had me carrying ammo to the front lines on a few battles, me, a kid barely big enough to know how to tie her own bootlaces. But you know why I did it? It wasn’t because I was a slave and they told us to, it was because they asked me to. They treated me as an equal, even though I was just knee-high to most of them and couldn’t carry a blaster. They treated all of us, my parents and me, like we were soldiers right in the thick of it with them, we got the same rations, we slept in the same quarters. One of them told me that he had a daughter my age, and he said I was just as brave as she was, and that I was making them proud. Not just my parents, I was making all of them proud. Right then, we felt like a family, one put together by the war that we were fighting together. Maybe if things had gone differently, we would all have become Mandalorians, been inducted into a clan, the whole deal. We’ll never know now, but, right now, I’m thinking that we’re back in that same kind of boat. All of us, not just us three but everyone on this ship, are in this thing together. We’re going with the Exile, we’re going to stop the Sith, and whatever happens happens. But the fact that we’re going together into that kind of battle, that makes us a kind of family, too. And from what it sounds like, the family you’ve got here is already better than the one you had back on Telos.”

“That is… not untrue.” The Handmaiden admitted, “All of what you said, about your family and the Mandalorians, you lost them at Malachor Five?”

“Yeah, I did. A lot of people lost their families at Malachor. And I spent a long time after that avoiding getting too attached to people, being the super callous bounty hunter on Nar Shaddaa, who took any job and never socialized because I didn’t want to go through that again. But all that left me was cold, scared and lonely, at least until the Exile came along.”

“But the Exile is the one who caused what happened at Malachor Five to happen.” The Handmaiden protested, “She is responsible for… your parents.”

“Yes, she is. And we talked about it, and right now I’m not really ready to go into it. But suffice to say, I’m still here and I haven’t put a blaster bolt in the back of her head, so we’re good.” Mira sighed, and closed the doors back up inside of herself that let all of that personal junk spill out in the first place. She’d only told the Exile her story once, and then vowed to never talk about it again. And here she was, talking about it again with people who were even less qualified to understand it.

“It is her will that connects us.” Visas spoke up again. Mira kept almost forgetting that she was in the room, she was so quiet. Was she even breathing? “The Exile is why we all are here, we follow her of our own volition for our own reasons. Each of us also has reasons to be against her, either through our own volition or the volition of others who command us. My Master seeks the death of all Jedi, including the Exile, to feed his hunger, to fill the hollow inside of himself created by the dark side of the Force. He sent me to find the Exile, to seize her and bring her before him. Defying my master as I have, choosing to stay with the Exile and pledge my life to her, has only escaped his notice for the moment. It is only a matter of time before my betrayal is made known to him, and I will bear his wrath when the time comes. But I do not regret my decision. I know that for the coming battle, the Exile will need all of the aid that she can gather. My life is hers, and both of your strengths and wills are bound to her as well. Whether those aboard this ship and whatever allies she can gather will be enough, I do not know. That future is dark and clouded, full of fire and blood. But my fate is bound to that of the Exile, and I would walk into that fire and blood with her.”

“As would I.” The Handmaiden said.

Mira nodded. “Me, too.”

“Then that should be our focus.” Visas continued, “When my master took me from the surface of my world, when he had turned Katarr to nothing but ash and somehow spared my life alone, I wanted nothing more than to die, and for the galaxy itself to die around me. Life, it seemed, was futile. In fact, it was abhorrent. That the galaxy continued to live when the world I knew as a home had died seemed to be the greatest evil, the greatest injustice that could ever have existed. My master made me see life as he did, as a light to be extinguished. But when I met the Exile, I saw in her a light that had seen far more death than my own. The Exile carries with her the ache of one who knowingly ended the life of an entire world. And yet, her light has still not gone out. If there is anyone to exist who might be powerful enough to challenge my master, it is her. I know there is no one else that I would follow to my death as willingly as I would her. I do not focus on how much I love her, or that I could not be with her no matter how much I longed for it. My focus is on the future that she must reach, and the battle she must be prepared for. We must all do our part to ready her for what is coming.”

“Now see, that’s what an older sister does. She’s giving us a bit of wisdom, getting us to change our perspective a bit.” Mira turned a half-smile from Visas toward the Handmaiden. “A bit darker and more dramatic than I would get, because I for one have no intention of dying anytime soon, but at least that gives us a plan.”

“Focus on teaching the Exile what she needs to know of us, of the skills that we can teach her to better prepare her for the battles to come.” The Handmaiden said this, looking down at the floor again and nodding to herself. “So the training we have started must go on.”

“Sounds like it. I mean, the Exile learning the Echani martial arts can only be a good thing, right?” Mira looked at the hesitance in the Handmaiden’s body language, and figured she should say something more. “Look, if you two are sparring in here, no one’s going to bother you if you want to… get up to other things, too. You already know how to lock the door.”

“No, that would not be right.” The Handmaiden straightened up, and her expression became steely once again. “Before anything else, I must tell the Exile what my feelings are in this matter, and that our training may be affected by it. It may be that she asks for things to continue as they have, and if that is the case then… I do not know what I will do. But at the very least I will make my feelings known. Even if she does already know what I feel, having them acknowledged in her presence will bring the conversation into the open. At the very least, that will make me feel more honest when I am training with her.”

Mira nodded. “Good plan, see, I figured we’d get there eventually.” She paused for a moment and let a small smile spread on her face, because she felt a bit more teasing coming in. “Now, if you want my advice, big sister to little sister, if you tell her all this, and she says the two of you will keep training and all that? I say you go for it, and whatever happens happens. At the very least it’ll be something that you’re able to hold over Atton’s head from now until the end of time and space.”

The Handmaiden pulled a face and made a disgusted sound. “Of all of the people, I think Atton would be the one I would least want to know about what happens.” Then, she paused, and Mira saw, for just a second, a small smile on her face as well. “It would make him quite jealous though, especially because he would not have the least idea of anything that led up to it.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Visas walked past the two of them to the door again and stood by it. “It seems that the situation has resolved, and you both are in a better place now to address these feelings that have troubled you. If I have helped, I am glad.”

“You did help, I think.” Mira acknowledged, “Maybe not with all of the stuff about dying for the Exile, but a little extra perspective helped.”

“Your input was appreciated, seer.” The Handmaiden said. She was closer to the door and to Visas than Mira was, but she was not hostile toward her, she did not brace herself as if she was about to throw a punch like she had when the Miraluka had first come in the room. “I still am not sure that I trust you, but your willingness to be open and honest was esteemable, as was your evident commitment to the Exile.”

“I know you have not had many reasons to appreciate my presence on this ship, Handmaiden, but please know that I am not here to harm you or the Exile or anyone else. I am here to serve, and help all of you prepare for what is to come. We will all be tried and tested, and we must be strong and united together to weather the oncoming storm.”

* * *

The surface of Malachor was cold, dark and quiet. But it was the sort of cold and dark that Mira could deal with. The quiet, not so much. In the quiet, she had to listen, because any moment might mean there was a Sith assassin cloaked and standing right behind her or or someone else nearby. She was so much stronger with the Force now, listening was so much easier, but it had never had stakes this high, it had never been this dangerous. If she missed something, if she was wrong or lost concentration for even a moment, it might mean someone close to her was dead before either of them knew it.

So she listened, letting the Force echo around her in an eternal pattern, ripples of noise created by life itself spreading, reflecting on each other, bouncing back and forth between the craggy, broken ground beneath them and the wide, oppressive red sky above. She did what the Exile had taught her, letting her mind revel in the noise while she waited, like an apex predator on Duxn, for her prey to make a move that caused the patterns to change. The moment something changed, she knew exactly where they were, and how close she had come to losing a friend.

“Bri, behind you!” She snapped out loud.

Brianna, the Handmaiden of Atris no more, ignited her silver-bladed lightsaber and spun in place, one end of its double-blades plunging into the chest of a black-masked Sith assassin, whose personal cloak hid them from the naked eye but was useless under the omnipresent gaze of the Force. The Force was in everything, and that included these ragged animals in black robes who seemed to only want to mindlessly kill or be killed, which meant that Mira could hear them, and Brianna could kill them. Brianna kicked the assassin in the chest and sent them sprawling, then jumped forward and slashed her lightsaber down, cutting the being in half while they were on the ground.

Mira watched this, but she still had her mind open, she was still listening for any other assassins that were coming toward them. She was their group’s best scout, all of her time bounty hunting and all of the training she’d done to learn how to listen was paying off. So when she found she could hear three more assassins closing in quickly, she made sure to say so. “Three more of them coming in, get ready!”

Brianna was always ready. That whip-fast reflex she’d always had of being ready to fight at a moment’s notice had only gotten sharper as she’d started training in the Force with the Exile. Mira reflected that, in hindsight, she really should have seen her being Force-sensitive coming. There was no way that someone could be as fast and light on their feet as the former Handmaiden was without it. And now that she had some Jedi training and a lightsaber, she was an unstoppable whirlwind of death. If she wanted to kill you, anyway.

“Let them come.” She said, and she twirled her lightsaber around so that one end pointed low and the other pointed high, as if she were wielding a quarterstaff. “We will not fall here, not when we have come so far.”

Mira had to agree, but she also had to prepare herself for combat. She had a lightsaber of her own, a nice emerald green one that the Exile had helped her build. It only had a single blade, and she wasn’t nearly as good with it as Brianna was with hers, so she had to make sure to take every chance and advantage she had to come out on top of a fight like this. Thankfully, one part of the Jedi training that the Exile had made sure to leave out of their lessons together was anything about etiquette, duel rules or any other crap like that. Which left Mira free to fight as dirty as she always had. She still wore her old jacket, too, though she had taken some of the padding out to make it easier to move around in. A lot of the other weapons and gadgets she’d had to carry around to feel safe were gone, left behind several planets ago, but she still had the jacket, and she still had her wrist-mounted ordnance launcher.

She could hear someone, just to her left, a bit ahead. She didn’t know exactly where they were standing, but she knew the general space within a couple of meters. Getting it any closer would take a lot more time and concentration, neither of which she could spare. Thankfully, there were other things she could spare instead. She flipped her lightsaber over to her left hand for a moment then aimed her right wrist toward that spot and fired off a small concussion round, which in itself wouldn’t do much damage, but which was hurled into that space at a speed close to the speed of sound itself. The explosion rattled the stones around them and shook the ceiling of the cavern they stood in, and out of the shockwave of scattered chunks of rock tumbled another black-clad Sith assassin, polearm falling from their hand, head striking the rock and going limp.

“Let’s even those odds up a bit, huh?” She quipped. She might have said more, she had another joke on the tip of her tongue, but then something started screaming next to her and she spun away, her left hand sweeping her lightsaber through that space to ward it off. A polearm intercepted the wild blow and batted it aside, the sparks raining off of it from where the plasma blade impacted the Force-infused metal.

Mira squared off against the assassin, her lightsaber in both hands, watching their body, listening for any betrayal of intent, anything that might clue her in to what was going to happen in the next five seconds. Six months ago, she would have run away from a fight like this, run and hid and counted her lucky stars when she got away. Three months ago, she would have stalled and shouted for help, calling for backup from someone more qualified to take these kinds of beings on. But those weren’t options anymore. It was just her and Brianna here on a whole planet full of Sith, there was nowhere to run or hide and no one to call for help. Fortunately, she wasn’t the same person now that she had been then. She was, well not a Jedi, but she was certainly something more than just a lonely bounty hunter. She had the Force on her side now, and she had at least one friend left to fight alongside of who she could count on to watch her back.

Brianna gave a shout of effort and attacked from out of Mira’s right periphery, leaping through the air and bringing her lightsaber down in a huge, sweeping arc. She dressed differently now. Her head was uncovered, she wore her hair a bit longer but kept the beaded braids in. Most of all, she had ditched the white Handmaiden outfit entirely, and wore a set of billowing grey robes over a loose white shirt and pants. They were Jedi robes, she said they’d belonged to her mother, and they were far bulkier than what she’d worn before. However, they didn’t seem to slow her down in the slightest. The Sith barely managed to get their weapon turned around to intercept Brianna’s blow, and even then they were knocked flat by the impact of her body against them. As they lay flat on the ground, polearm bracing desperately to keep the tip of Brianna’s silver blade from slipping lower and into the black bodysuit they wore, Mira heard the last one darting in, trying to take advantage of Brianna’s turned back. That was the opening that she needed.

Mira darted forward, dropping her left hand from her saber and letting it down to her side as she poured on all of the speed she could. Time itself seemed to slow down in front of her as she spun her lightsaber over so the blade was pointed down out of her hand toward the ground, and as she sprinted past Brianna and the fallen Sith assassin, she dragged the point of her blade across the assassin’s body, cutting through their armor and into their torso.

She didn’t wait to see what happened next, if she’d killed them outright or just wounded them enough for Brianna to finish them off. She needed to use the next few seconds as best she could; the Exile had taught her to put on bursts of speed using the Force, to either make everything around her slow down or make herself move faster. She wasn’t good at it, the burst never lasted long and it left her winded afterward, but for the next few seconds nothing would be able to stop her, they simply could not react fast enough.

Which meant that the last oncoming assassin had no chance to fight back as she swept by with her lightsaber still out in that reverse grip, cutting through them at the knees. As she skidded to a stop, boots scraping against the loose stones, she held onto a bit of that momentum, spun her arm around, and brought the lightsaber down in a slash that cut the assassin in half as they fell to what was left of their knees.

It wasn’t silence that took the cavern after that. Mira was panting to get her breath back, her lightsaber hummed in her hand and Brianna’s hummed in hers as well. But the danger had passed, for the moment at least, she couldn’t hear anyone or anything else coming their direction. For that moment, they had a bit of peace.

“Good work.” Brianna said, stepping over and kicking aside the last assassin she had killed. “Your lightsaber skills have improved a lot since we began training with them.”

“Yeah, well, I had some good teachers.” Mira took a few long, deep breaths. She tried to remember what the Exile had taught her about the Force and using it to heal herself, to refresh her body. They’d had lessons about this, long lessons, the Exile had insisted that they all know this, all of them that she was teaching about the Force. But instead of the Exile’s words in her mind, it was Visas’s voice she heard, echoing the Exile as she so often had. Her soft voice was repeating things that they had said that day, during the lessons, but her words echoed, like they were coming from somewhere far away.

“The Force is not a tool to be used and cast aside. Selfishness, trying to tighten your grip on the things you have, only lead to ruin and destruction. You must release them, let them go back into the energy that formed them, and then you will be granted back even more than what you had asked or needed. Let it fill you by first emptying yourself of everything else.”

Mira wasn’t sure she agreed, not when she’d first heard those words or now that she was remembering them. But she took the advice in the moment, letting out one last, cleansing breath and with it letting out all of the pains she had, the aches in her muscles, the soreness in her feet and the ache inside her heart remembering Visas’s voice. When she took her next breath, she could feel the Force filling her up again, and she was no longer tired or sore or hurting.

“We need to keep moving,” She urged, “The Exile’s counting on us.”

Brianna nodded, closing her saber down but keeping it in her hand. “As are the others. If Kreia has turned them aside the same way that she turned us-”

“We’ll find them and we’ll make sure they all get out of here in one piece.” Mira assured her. “No one else dies on our watch, that’s the promise we made, right?”

“Correct.” Brianna nodded again, then looked down. Mira could see in her face the memories flooding back, the sense of failure and regret. She knew, because she knew what was in her own heart at that moment as well.

“Visas would be proud of us, Bri.” She said out loud, “In fact, I think she is proud.”

“I hope she is, I am not as attuned to that aspect of the Force as you are.” Brianna looked at her for a moment, then asked, “Can you hear her? Can you hear Visas’s voice in the Force?”

“Sometimes, yeah. Like right now, when I was trying to remember how to do the whole self-healing thing with the Force, I could hear her. I think she’s still looking out for us.”

“She said that her mission was to make sure we were ready for what would come. I do not think she would consider that work finished, at least not until this place is turned to dust and the last of the Sith along with it.” Brianna took a breath of her own and snapped back into her Handmaiden mode for a moment, steely, calm, dangerous. “We need to move, there are buildings ahead that may house more Sith. If they have taken the others, that is likely where we will find them.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Mira turned to lead the way. She was the scout, after all. But as she turned, she looked over her shoulder one more time. “I’m proud of you, you know.”

Brianna looked confused. “For what?”

“Don’t ask me For what, you know what I’m talking about. I knew what was going to happen when we went back to Telos, we all did. And I’m telling you that I’m proud of you for how it turned out. Not many people would have walked out of there with their heads held high like you did.”

She saw Brianna flush bright red, but instead of looking embarrassed, she straightened up and smiled a bit. “This is rather not the time or the place to talk about it, but, thank you.”

“Well, it’s been a busy couple of days.” Mira turned and started jogging out of the cave toward the Sith citadel. Her heart swelled with confidence. Yes, things hadn’t gone according to plan. Yes, everyone was scattered across Malachor like they’d been dropped out of orbit by a blind Sullustan with both hands tied behind his back. But the Force was with her, and Brianna was with her, and she could hear the Exile up ahead somewhere, the sound of her in the Force was like a siren’s wail, impossible to miss, impossible to block out. It told her exactly where she needed to go: toward the woman they both loved but could never have. She was okay with that, and she was pretty sure that Brianna was as well. They were a bit busy saving the galaxy after all. “C’mon, let’s go find our friends, find the Exile and get off of this blasted rock.”


End file.
